West Wiltshire District Council

EDM number 200 in 1990-91, proposed by Stuart Randall on 10/12/1990.

That this House notes the dawn raid and arrests on Monday 10th December by the Wiltshire Police of former and currently serving officers of the Conservative-controlled West Wiltshire District Council, namely Gerald Garland, Rodger White, Roger Pugh and Frank Archer, as a result of large scale financial corruption and fraud, at huge expense to local people; notes that the unlawful privatisation of its legal services and computer software operations and corrupt land deals occurred as a result of the subversion of council procedures by a small inner circle of Conservative councillors comprising Mary Pearce, Kay Self, Charles Goodbody, Alwyn Curtis, Bruce Bennett and Gordon Alden, in particular the establishment of the unauthorised software sales working party which was used by this inner circle of councillors as a mechanism to make corrupt decisions and to bypass the legitimate council committee structure; looks forward to the suspension and surcharging of those responsible Conservative councillors by the District Auditor in order to make good the money that the West Wiltshire poll tax payers have lost as a result of this corruption; strongly compliments Hayden Thomas and Jon Maguire of the West Wiltshire Labour Party for their substantial amount of constructive work in helping reveal corruption in the council and particularly notes the way they challenged the actions of the council in March 1986 by requesting the District Auditor to carry out a special audit; and additionally notes their high quality work in documenting the extent of corruption in the council.

This motion has been signed by a total of 20 MPs.